Exit To Entrance

A Post for NCRcafe: Exit to Entrance
By Marie Schickel Rottschaefer
Vol. 2 No. 4 July 28, 2008

The goal of these posts is to give a brief overview of developments that have relevance for us in the early 21st century, particularly in seeking solutions for pressing people and planet problems.

Contemporary Faith Metamorphosis: A Partial Answer To Why The Change

If we recall Sheehan’s article referred to earlier, it is one example of an introduction to the methodology of biblical scholars and researchers. Contemporary scientific methods used by Catholic scripture scholars began as the result of Pope Pius XII’s 1943 encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu. Methodology demonstrates, among other issues, the reasons for the biblical demythologization that has changed our contemporary religious perspective profoundly.

Demythologization is scriptural research that rids the biblical stories of all mythical (imaginary) or mysterious (unexplained) aspects. It removes the myth and keeps the facts. Making a case for the degree of justification for a document’s authenticity is necessarily a part of the process. This requires scientific inquiry, for example implementing archaeology and anthropology. These are two disciplines that brought us to new discoveries regarding our past, including religious documents and other historical data.

The unearthing of the past sheds light on what is historically genuine and what appears to be invented for whatever reason. In New Search #4 1-24-07, I quoted Sheehan’s remark that Hans Kung holds that the Jewish belief in the resurrection of the dead was a late arriving belief in Judaism, making its initial appearance about 164 BCE. Early Judaism had maintained that the dead enter Sheol, a dark nether world of semi- existence from which no one expected them to emerge. But during the difficult years of the Maccabean revolt, a new hope arose: that God would vindicate his faithful people by resurrecting them from the dead at the end of the world.

The New York Times (Online Edition, July 6, 2008) published an article entitled “Ancient Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection.” It’s worth a scroll. But here are key points very briefly. “Mr. Knohl contends that the stone’s writings are about the death of a leader of the Jews who will be resurrected in three days. ‘This should shake our basic view of Christianity,’ he said as he sat in his office of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem where he is a senior fellow in addition to being the Yehezkel Kaufman Professor of Biblical Studies at Hebrew University. …. ‘Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus, which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship. What happens in the New Testament was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story.’”

So belief in resurrection and the religious significance of resurrection for the Jewish community seem to have been well established before the appearance of Jesus. If this stone tablet discovery is authentic, then it contributes to a re-evaluation of the Christian theological claim regarding belief in Jesus’ after life as being unique. These affirmations along with the Jesus Seminar’s findings appear to give added weight to the view that there is a high probability that there was no resurrection of Jesus Christ. The early Christian community used their background religious beliefs to formulate their beliefs about Jesus.

With this introduction we are prepared to view a few of the findings in The Acts of Jesus The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus, by Robert Funk and the Jesus Seminar, (Harper, San Francisco, A Polebridge Press Book, 1998). The work of demythologization in Funk and his associates’ book strikes at the heart of cherished Catholic beliefs. It is a prime example of the demythologization of a scriptural foundation, for example, Jesus’ bodily resurrection, that radically invalidates that scriptural foundation’s tradition-based religious infrastructure, for example, the Holy Triduum (the liturgical commemoration from Holy Thursday – Easter Sunday). If there was no bodily resurrection of Jesus then there is not any reason for the Triduum.

Here are a very few instances in a book filled with illustrations that stun our current Catholic presuppositions both about who Jesus was and about the origins of Christianity.

1.“ … the earlier strata of the New Testament contain no appearance stories, “ [The Seminar makes distinctions between the ‘appearance stories,’ the ‘empty tomb stories’ and these earliest evidentiary documents.]

2. Most of the narrative of Jesus’ trial was created on the basis of Psalm 2 and both the fact and content of the trial lack historical foundation.

3. The body of Jesus decayed, as do other corpses. [Recall, the Creed recited at the Eucharistic celebration, whether the Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed, emphasizes the resurrection of the body or the dead. Confer the Catechism of the Catholic Church (United States Catholic Conference, Inc.---Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Catholic Book Publishing Co. New York, NY, 1994).]

4. There was “… no demonstrable interest in Jesus’ burial site until the fourth century,” [Does this imply that there was no interest for about three hundred or more years in the place where people had claimed to experience the resurrected Jesus and then suddenly there was interest? This is a discontinuity that stupefies given the fact of the creed just referred to, unless seemingly there was doctrinal manipulation at some point not congruent with the historical trajectory of belief in the resurrection.]

5. The empty tomb stories in all the gospels are colored black (a color code the Seminar Fellows used to assess the degree of authenticity). This means that these stories are improbable, not verifiable, and largely or entirely fictive.

6. The liturgical Judeo-Christian link is of intense interest historically. [The Christian celebration had its origins in the Judaic celebration but moved beyond. Each celebrates a distinct liberation, the Passover celebration commemorating the Exodus story and the Easter celebration commemorating Jesus’ resurrection.]
Note: bracketed areas above are my comments.

Next time: where are we moving?